The Hand of Ethelberta eBook

mother with a subject of contemplation. She
became teacher in a school, was praised by examiners,
admired by gentlemen, not admired by gentlewomen,
was touched up with accomplishments by masters who
were coaxed into painstaking by her many graces, and,
entering a mansion as governess to the daughter thereof,
was stealthily married by the son. He, a minor
like herself, died from a chill caught during the
wedding tour, and a few weeks later was followed into
the grave by Sir Ralph Petherwin, his unforgiving father,
who had bequeathed his wealth to his wife absolutely.

These calamities were a sufficient reason to Lady
Petherwin for pardoning all concerned. She took
by the hand the forlorn Ethelberta—­who seemed
rather a detached bride than a widow—­and
finished her education by placing her for two or three
years in a boarding-school at Bonn. Latterly
she had brought the girl to England to live under her
roof as daughter and companion, the condition attached
being that Ethelberta was never openly to recognize
her relations, for reasons which will hereafter appear.

The elegant young lady, as she had a full right to
be called if she cared for the definition, arrested
all the local attention when she emerged into the
summer-evening light with that diadem-and-sceptre bearing—­many
people for reasons of heredity discovering such graces
only in those whose vestibules are lined with ancestral
mail, forgetting that a bear may be taught to dance.
While this air of hers lasted, even the inanimate
objects in the street appeared to know that she was
there; but from a way she had of carelessly overthrowing
her dignity by versatile moods, one could not calculate
upon its presence to a certainty when she was round
corners or in little lanes which demanded no repression
of animal spirits.

‘Well to be sure!’ exclaimed a milkman,
regarding her. ’We should freeze in our
beds if ’twere not for the sun, and, dang me!
if she isn’t a pretty piece. A man could
make a meal between them eyes and chin—­eh,
hostler? Odd nation dang my old sides if he couldn’t!’

The speaker, who had been carrying a pair of pails
on a yoke, deposited them upon the edge of the pavement
in front of the inn, and straightened his back to
an excruciating perpendicular. His remarks had
been addressed to a rickety person, wearing a waistcoat
of that preternatural length from the top to the bottom
button which prevails among men who have to do with
horses. He was sweeping straws from the carriage-way
beneath the stone arch that formed a passage to the
stables behind.

’Never mind the cursing and swearing, or somebody
who’s never out of hearing may clap yer name
down in his black book,’ said the hostler, also
pausing, and lifting his eyes to the mullioned and
transomed windows and moulded parapet above him—­not
to study them as features of ancient architecture,
but just to give as healthful a stretch to the eyes
as his acquaintance had done to his back. ’Michael,
a old man like you ought to think about other things,
and not be looking two ways at your time of life.
Pouncing upon young flesh like a carrion crow—­’tis
a vile thing in a old man.’